


Working to Live

by Tallulah



Category: Battle Royale (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Lack of Communication, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Poverty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 18:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11765349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: Four survivors have made it to America.





	1. Happiness

Kayoko got the cleaning job about two months after they made it to New York. Lucky break. With her English being so bad (like she would've studied harder if she'd known within a year she was going to be a refugee fleeing a death game and all) and with her looking like a little kid, it was amazing anyone was willing to pay her for anything. Noriko got a job way quicker. Her English was pretty strong, plus she spent the voyage brushing up on it while Kayoko spent it making out with Sugimura – with _Hiroki_ , they are so beyond first names by now, nearly dying together does that – and pretending the rest of her life wasn't happening, because she's an _idiot_.

Still, despite that, she has a job in the warm and that pays her actual money, if not very much, and doesn't require her to take her clothes off. She'd been thinking, she'd been thinking if she didn't find something soon then she was gonna have to... And she didn't want to, she was thinking she'd made it through the Program without any of the guys in class trying anything, and it wasn't fair, but the four of them were all hungry like all the time and she couldn't just live off everyone else. (They would probably be thinking she'd be used to it. Because of helping out in her mum's bar. She was really angry about this, too, even though no one ever said anything.)

But she got the cleaning job and at least she already knew how to clean stuff. It's an upstairs office, lots of phones and desks, she's not totally sure what they do there and she probably doesn't want to know. It's dim and chilly and she gets freaked out sometimes when she walks in because she's not so good walking into strange rooms alone. Because of, you know, the whole Program thing, and even though it's pretty unlikely someone will be in the shadows with a gun, you never can tell when everything's going to go really bad. Lucky it's a small office that doesn't take her long to clean because it means she can freak out or cry or whatever without running out of time. Sometimes she stands at the doorway too scared to go in, clutching a dustpan and brush like it's her assigned weapon, and sometimes she's fine until halfway through dusting a desk she'll just start sobbing and have to stop and sit down on one of the swivelly chairs and try not to leave tearstains on the keyboards. 

But then she gets over it like she always does. Plus, if she's already freaked out on her own at work then she won't usually freak out at home in front of Hiroki and the others. She lost it a little when they were still in Japan, and when they were on the boat, but then they actually made it to America and she was like _Right, got to keep it together_. Hiroki had only come to find her in the game because he'd fallen in love with the girl who liked flowers and kittens and goofing around. It'd have to suck if he realised he'd somehow managed to pick up this, like, complete basket case.

Besides, she's the one who doesn't take anything too seriously. Shuuya says the inspiring things and Noriko says the kind things and Hiroki is quiet and strong and she's the goofy, cute one. Got to make them think she's still that through and through. An open book, she tells herself. Easiest to think like that, pretend there's nothing but what people see.


	2. Faith

Noriko started working at the Asian food shop only a few weeks after they'd arrived, when she was still in a daze that they'd made it there at all. She was being stupid. At the time. She was feeling not so happy, and she'd gone into the little supermarket because it was making her think of home. Even though she knew thinking of home would make her feel even worse. But she'd been hoping maybe it wouldn't. That seeing onigiri or sushi would let her kid herself none of it had happened.

Anyway, she got to come back to the apartment and tell the others she'd got a job and they were all really pleased, everyone said she was amazing. It was a man and his wife who owned the store and she didn't say the man had offered her the job because he fancied her. Shuuya would've lost his temper, said she shouldn't have to put up with her manager staring at her chest or putting his hand on her butt whenever he wanted. He would've been impassioned and outspoken and after it all nothing would've changed because actually, she does have to put up with it if she wants them all to be able to eat.

It's not so bad, anyway, because his wife's always there too and she gives both of them a dirty look if she thinks her husband's making it too obvious. And the work itself is okay. Noriko is good at smiling and saying _please_ and _thank you_ and _come back soon_. Like the smiling ladies in department stores back in Shiroiwa. She pretends she's one of those women, shiny-haired and nothing to worry about but making the customer happy. Her manager's wife probably thinks she's doing it to flirt, but Noriko is getting pretty good at pretending she didn't notice the no-doubt sarcastic comments in Chinese made behind her back. 

And to be honest she thinks if she didn't keep on being The Perfect Employee it would all come crashing down _everywhere_. Because she's supposed to have faith. She thought she _did_ have faith. She had it back on the island, when she had no guarantee she wasn't about to be shot dead. Now, when she's more or less safe and more or less free, now she starts thinking that everything is black and awful underneath?

She can't do that to Shuuya. When she manages to cheer him up, she almost feels like herself again, like it was all worth it. If he sees how horrible everything looks inside her head, he'll be devastated. They're in the land of the free and the home of rock and roll and she still has faith in him and she's not going to take even a bit of joy away from him. Her heart is open and her hope is strong and she really _wants_ you to have a nice day. If she keeps this up enough, she thinks she'll end up actually believing it.


	3. Strength

Hiroki still works on the construction site, where he's just one of many foreign guys getting paid cash in hand with no questions asked. But then a few weeks ago this hole-in-the-wall gym opened up on his route home. Hiroki didn't mean to go in. He wasn't looking for a workout and he _definitely_ wasn't looking for a fight. But the owner was trying to make a name for himself, and when he heard Hiroki was a bona fide Japanese martial arts “expert” he said he'd pay him to teach people the moves.

When he's there, in a room smelling of sweat, trying to explain in English – or dumb show, if the guy he's teaching has as little of the language as he does and no Japanese – he's very rarely _there_. Sometimes the noise of feet on mats and grunting and crashes is knocking him back to his own classes, and no one's dead and he's about to walk out of the door back to what used to be his real life. Sometimes he's thinking how long ago that was, how long since he was the pupil; feeling like he's doing a bad impression of a teacher, sweaty-palmed and stammery and doesn't know anything. 

Sometimes he's back on the island and the sweat is blood and he can smell it and instead of the grimy mats and the futzy sunlight there's Kiriyama slumping to the ground with his eyes still open. Blood and other things spattering the grass. That's the worst because then throwing the lightest punch feels like a route back to all of _that_ , and he always leaves wondering what the hell is wrong with him. After you've killed someone, you should want to give up anything to do with fighting, right?

Except he can't. Before this, when it was just the building work, he was feeling like if someone just shoved him a little he'd crumble into bits. If speaking in his native language could make him turn red and stutter, speaking in English was a total non-starter, which made him feel even more useless. Noriko could scrape by, and Kayoko and Shuuya made up for their lack of skill with enthusiasm, but he was just silent and surrounded by words he didn't know. Earning money by sparring is kind of on the same level as finding a workplace where everyone speaks fluent Japanese. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed feeling useful. 

_Strength and sensitivity_ , his teacher had said. The two complementing each other. Hand in hand. But it's different now. The strength is there to _stop_ the sensitivity. Kayoko trusts him too much. She tells him she's so grateful he's there, that he always makes her feel like they're going to make it. Shuuya and Noriko shake their heads and marvel at how he's still the same strong, silent Sugimura. He doesn't know how to tell them he's not strong, not any more, and the silence is killing him.


	4. Hope

Shuuya knows busking's not a long-term viable career path but at least it's something that doesn't require him to communicate complex concepts in English. And while he's not exactly making minimum wage he is at least contributing _something_ to the electricity meter and the bulk rice budget. You've got to tell yourself this when it's freezing and you can't feel your toes and still you're making yourself walk to another spot where there might be more people rather than just going somewhere _warm_.

The other three clubbed together to get him the guitar. It's battered and bits of it keep threatening to fall off and he sounds like a wind-up toy more'n anything else but they bought it for him like all his big talk about rock and roll was more than just talk. Like he'd saved their lives through the magic of rock and was going to fix everything with a few power chords. Every dollar someone throws in his direction is a way of repaying them for buying into that lie.

He does better than some because he's young and not bad-looking and manages to take a shower most days if the plumbing's not busted. And because he plays what he's realised people call the classics, the golden oldies on the easy listening radio stations, so a lot of grown-ups get nostalgic for their youth. And, let's not beat around the bush here, some people find an Asian guy singing with a really bad English accent hilarious. Shuuya calls out to them, exaggerating his shitty pronounciation, _Thank you very much! Have a nice day!_ and then if he says something in Japanese like _Laugh all you want, I'm still the one with the dollar_ that only makes them snicker more.

He tells this kind of story back at home, too. Paints himself as the scrappy one, the one who can't keep his mouth shut and always comes up with a smile and an inspiring slogan that he _really believes in_. Nothing wrong with that. He needs something to believe in, too. And it's pretty easy, faking being himself, because it looks so obvious. Everyone thinks they're seeing all they need to see.

He can't start saying now how scared he is. That they'll get deported. That someone from the Greater East Asian Republic will come looking for them. That one of them will get sick or hurt. That they'll be miserable and he won't be able to fix it. That the money really will run out and they'll end up freezing to death. The fears are eating away at him but he's not going to admit it. He got them this far on hope, so admitting there's none left in the tank will help no one.


End file.
